The Man Situation

Online chats and groups where women can start romantic relationships with soldiers have been flourishing in Russia since 2022. “Ever since mobilization started, I can’t even look at ordinary civilians!” says one member’s profile. Here, we explore what it’s like to look for a life-partner in the trenches and why women are willing to stake their futures on men they’ve never met.

Groups for women wanting to meet soldiers existed before the war, but there was a lot less interest in them than today. Now, the most popular of these groups, which is on the social media site VKontakte, counts 45,000 members. In December 2021, it got about 100,000 page views per day. One year later, in December 2022, that number exceeded one million. There are dozens more groups like this on social media, each with between 5,000 and 30,000 members.

In all of these communities, people wish each other not a “good” evening but a “peaceful” one. They congratulate one another with the holidays devoted to the Russian Navy, the special forces, communications officers, tank soldiers, ground troops – the list is long. They ask questions such as “What does your ideal relationship look like?” and “Could you forgive someone who cheated?” They complain: “Why are such daring and courageous men unable to express themselves normally with women? After all, when something is left unsaid, it’s hard to forget and move forward.” They share stories of unsuccessful attempts to find love, or boast of happy endings. They quote rah-rah-patriotic and sentimental poems along these lines: